Accurate and reliable registration of substrate media as the media travel in a process direction through the printer are important for the production of quality images. Even a slight skew or misalignment of the substrate media as the substrate passes the printheads for image formation can lead to image and color registration errors. Known nip assemblies used to correct skew and adjust for lateral registration of the substrates position multiple nips along a cross-process direction of a media transport path to de-skew and laterally translate the substrates. As substrate processing speeds increase, the force applied by the rollers in these nip assemblies intensifies so the skew and lateral registration can be corrected within the decreasing time provided for such correction. The force applied by the rollers may wrinkle, tear, or buckle medium and light-weight substrate media. Accordingly, a printer that can register images on substrates and de-skew substrate media before printing in these high-speed printing systems without applying forces that can wrinkle, tear, or buckle the substrate media would be beneficial.